Mark Daniels – Google

I was curious about Asteroid City - but I'm not sure if I enjoyed it or not. Set in the fictional town of Asteroid City, it's clear it's taking aim at the popularity of alien sightings in US towns near military or observatory locations. It's also poking fun at the process of creating a play and il ultimately takes a style of a stage show, hamming up the woodenness of some actors. It breaks the fourth wall and jumps between the play itself and the back stage negotiations, differentiating between the two in both style, colour, and screen format. It features a huge ensemble cast that is compelling but ultimately you get to the end of the film unsure if it is trying to be too clever, or if you are too stupid to understand what it's all about.

A mediocre attempt at making the next big Christmas film. It follows the trope of competing neighbours trying to outdo each other with festive garden decorations, more successfully delivered through films like Deck The Halls or National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. There are some amusing nods to Christmas tales and some one liners that raise a smile, but this isn't laugh out loud as you might expect from Eddie Murphy. And then there is the inevitable reference to skin colour that just doesn't need to exist in a Christmas movie. If you're looking for a Christmas film to watch that you've not seen before, then this passes the time but it isn't a great feel good film that will have you glued to the screen and personally I'd prefer to have spent the time watching an age-old Christmas feel good that I've seen many times before.

Compelling enough to watch while doing the ironing, that's about as successful as you can call this film. Loosely based on a classified true story (apparently) it tells the tale of seven people who wake up on a flight, apparently in the middle of World War 3. It's badly overacted, the actors themselves doing the best they can with a weak plot full of holes, it lacks drama despite its cliffhanger ending that just leaves you feeling frustrated rather than excited.

John Wick: Chapter 4. A 2hr49m film that's 2hr39m too long. I'm pretty good at willingly suspending disbelief, but Wick should have died at least eighteen times in the first ten minutes of this film. I enjoyed the earlier Wick films, but this is a plotless indulgence that doesn't just border on farcical, it rewrites the dictionary definition. With a body count of 140, video game choreograph that sees Wick fighting mercenaries off one by one, despite all being there at the same time and having enough firepower to raze a small town, and throughout it all he somehow manages to survive breaking his back at least three times during the action. I've never seen such blatantly poor shooting from the bad guys since stormtroopers invaded a rebel base or The A Team broke out of another farm shed using nothing but a ball of twine and a lawnmower engine; and if nobody thinks of Batfink's wings that are a shield of steel every time he lifts his jacket to protect himself from bullets you need to go back and study your 80s children's cartoons. And let's not even mention the falling down the steps in the closing scenes that's more Austin Powers than Austin Powers or the fact that Reeves' acting in this is so wooden I feel like I've been smacked in the face by a wooden spoon. Three hours of my life I won't get back.

An overly long indulgence in to the world of Pandora. While Avatar was groundbreaking in 2009, this film felt 90 minutes too long and with a weak premise behind the storyline. While the original hooked you through the human-navi Avatar program, this film simply brings back to life dead characters and rehashes the same storyline, then leaves it all open for Avatar 3. There are some breathtakingly beautiful scenes, and certainly some tense moments, but a shockingly long introduction to the sea clans and far too much time talking to Hammerhead whales.